


Constants & Variables: Act 4

by NoBrandHero



Series: Constants & Variables: A Species Swap AU [9]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Humanstuck, Plotty, Sequel, Species Swap, Trollstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-04-18 08:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14209011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoBrandHero/pseuds/NoBrandHero
Summary: The game is over. The glitch that once threatened to infect reality is dormant. All that's left is to watch over the newly created universe as immortal godlike beings.It doesn't take long for a victory littered with casualties to feel hollow.A new threat lurks in the game the players left behind. Ghosts of strangers reach out for help in their dreams. And when doomed timelines branch off by the thousands, the alternate iterations of an old adversary never end.(Direct sequel toConstants & Variables)





	1. Intermission 3

**Author's Note:**

> I've hesitated to commit to this, but y'know, there's just not gonna be a better date to start posting Act 4 than C&V's fourth anniversary on 4/4.

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering adiosToreador [AT] \--

AG: Nitram, what the fuck????????  
AG: What's this about you and Megido getting a LARPing group together all of a sudden? I thought you weren't down with LARPing anymore!  
AT: wELL,,,,,,,  
AT: nOT,,, wITH YOU, nO,  
AT: bUT aRADIA,,, sHE, uHH, iS MY SISTER,,, sO,,,  
AT: wE SPEND TIME TOGETHER, sOMETIMES, lIKE FAMILY DOES,,, i THINK,  
AG: Pshhhhhhhh. Wow, you're falling for THAT old trick? Come on, use your 8rain! What is family even good for?  
AG: Actually, I'll give you a free8ie: all family does is use and a8use you.  
AG: They prop you up so they can push you down. Aaaaaaaall to feel 8etter a8out themselves.  
AT: uH,,,  
AT: i KNOW YOUR MOM IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE VERY NICE, bUT,,,  
AG: My mom was a giant 8itch, just like all the other moms. Trust me on that.  
AG: Did you ever meet YOUR mother?  
AT: sHE, uH,,,,,,  
AG: Hahahahahahahaha, yeah, I 8et you wish you'd gotten spewed from the Serket ectoslime instead of the laaaaaaaame com8o of Megido-Nitram!  
AT: i LIKE aRADIA, aCTUALLY,  
AG: Well, don't say I didn't warn you when she 8acksta8s you!  
AG: 8ut whatever, at least I tried!!!!!!!!  
AT: yOU KNOW i'M REALLY NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK, tO YOU ANYMORE,,,,,,  
AG: Yeah, like I haven't heard that 8efore!  
AG: Let's face it, I'm the gr8test friend you've got and that's why you keep crawling 8ack.  
AG: I tell it to you str8 and get shit done.  
AT: aCTUALLY,,,  
AT: tHAT ISNT TRUE, i DONT THINK,  
AT: aND THERE IS A GOOD REASON NO ONE INVITES YOU,,, tO OUR GAMES ANYMORE,,,  
AG: You mean 8ecause they're WUSSES who h8 to admit they can't 8eat me at a stupid game for toddlers?  
AT: aND,,,,,  
AT: i THINK,,,,  
AT: i SHOULD LISTEN TO THEM,  
AG: A8out what?!  
AT: sORRY, bUT,  
AT: nOT SORRY,

\-- adiosToreador [AT] blocked arachnidsGrip [AG] \--

AG: Are you fucking kidding me?!  
AG: You're leaving me on a 8urn THAT lame?  
AG: Yeah, well, whatever! I was too good for you anyway!!!!!!!!  
AG: Don't 8lame me when your life goes to shit 8ecause you're too 8usy hiding from anything with a little teeth!  
AG: May8e this time when you crawl 8ack, I won't 8e w8ing for you!

* * *

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering apocalypseArisen [AA] \--

AG: Hey, what's this a8out leaving me out of the loop, Megido? You're LARPing without me?  
AG: How many years have we 8een friends? You can't get over a little mistake or two in a past life?  
AA: i saved your soul from stagnating in the dreambubbles and brought you to this new earth  
AA: you can consider that a final nod to the friendship we once shared  
AA: you have proven on numerous occasions that you cant be trusted  
AG: That's 8ullshit!!!!!!!!  
AG: This new "Earth" suuuuuuuucks and we all know it!  
AG: We might as well have just stuck it out in the dream8u88les, for as irrelevant as we are outside of S8ur8!  
AA: i did enjoy traversing the bubbles and witnessing the chaos unfold amongst the horrorterrors  
AA: however there is one thing more important than any of that  
AA: my friends are alive again  
AA: and i intend to keep them that way :)  
AA: that means you arent invited to join our activities again  
AG: You're all just sore losers!  
AA: think what you like  
AA: i dont care  
AA: your insults lost all meaning to me long before we ever entered the game  
AG: Yeah, like I really 8elieve that! You'll just 8lock me and act like you won!  
AA: no that would be pointless  
AA: youll just redirect your screeching at another one of our friends if i become unavailable to you  
AA: given your words mean nothing to me  
AA: i might as well let you waste your breath on me :)  
AG: FUCK YOUUUUUUUU!  
AG: You think you're such hot shit???????? None of you could even win the game without me around to kick ass and take names!  
AG: You all just DIED!  
AA: tavros died by your own hand  
AA: your point is invalid  
AG: He deserved it!  
AA: you killed his dream self unprovoked  
AG: It was glitching up! Did you idiots really want a 8unch of glitchy dream selves w8king up and wrecking havoc?  
AA: why dont we agree to disagree before we continue this argument in circles ad infinitum  
AG: WHY DON'T YOU JUST GO DIE AGAIN????????

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased pestering apocalypseArisen [AA] \--

* * *

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering caligulasAquarium [CA] \--

AG: GOD! Can you 8elieve these losers????????  
AG: They owe me so fucking much but do they even appreci8 me anymore? Noooooooo! They think I'm CR8ZY or something!  
CA: i knoww wwhat you mean  
CA: fef wwont evven talk to me :(  
AG: You killed her, num8nuts. Don't act so surprised. Christ.  
CA: you killed tavv  
AG: UGH, that was DIFFERENT!  
AG: He 8ETRAYED me.  
AG: Didn't you like kill a 8unch of our parents????????  
CA: they wwere gettin in my wway  
AG: They're the only ones who didn't get to come 8ack to life! GOOD JO8, AMPORA! WE'RE ALL STILL ORPHANS!  
AG: How's the foster life treating YOU?  
CA: meh  
CA: i dont really miss my uncle  
CA: wwasnt your mom a giant bitch  
AG: She was GR8, thank you!!!!!!!!  
AG: You're such an insensitive asshole! God! I can't 8elieve you're the only one who still talks to me!  
CA: wwhat about that swweaty horse guy  
AG: UGH, he's almost worse than you are.  
CA: im sensin some unfair hostility here vvris  
CA: arent wwe in the same boat  
AG: I'm not your idol girlfriend who pretends to be a mermaid on TV, Ampora. You don't have to use water metaphors.  
CA: force of habit  
CA: she isnt an actress on this earth you knoww  
AG: WHATEVER. I can't keep track of which cele8rities still exist on this weird duplicate-ish Earth!  
AG: It's like we landed on John's troll planet or something. Sure, troll Adam Sandler exists, 8ut I guess they don't have troll Nic Cage for some reason!  
AG: Does Nic Cage even exist in this universe???????? I forget to even check on half of those assholes. Maybe he works at a Wendy's or something, and serves him right for having such a WEIRD filmography.  
AG: The point is, Feferi still let aaaaaaaall that fame from the last Earth go to her head pro8a8ly!  
AG: Not as much as you did, though. :::;P  
CA: my fame wwas wwell fuckin deservved  
CA: its just not wworth goin back into showwbiz wwithout fef at my side  
AG: Excuses! Just because Feferi likes 8eing a 8oring loser no8ody this time around doesn't mean we have to!  
AG: God, this world SUCKS.  
CA: i did expect a little better from a frog kan and kar made together  
AG: Yeah, maybe one of the trolls fucked it up for them.  
AG: Those guys sounded disorganized as shit. Even if John seemed pretty cool, compar8tively speaking.  
AG: 8ut I haven't heard from him since I died, so fuck him along with the rest of the dum8 aliens, I guess. :::;(  
CA: wwhat the fuck even is that  
CA: wwinky frowwny face  
AG: It's a CRINGE, you moron. O8VIOUSLY.  
CA: wwhat are you alwways harpin at me for  
CA: wwere in this together vvris you dont gotta push me awway  
AG: Yeah, sure, I guess you HAVE been the most sensi8le asshole to make it through the game.  
AG: Hell, I must have seen something in you if I was willing to d8 you 8efore, anyway. May8e it's starting to manifest finally.  
CA: wwait  
CA: are you askin for another date  
AG: Dream on!!!!!!!!  
AG: Nothing personal this time, 8ut my aspirations are too 8ig to get 8ogged down by romance! I have plans here! 8ig plans!  
AG: I just have to survive another two years of this 8oring "normal life" 8efore I can land a jo8 in the military.  
AG: Thief of Light or not, I'm always meant to 8e a hero!  
CA: wwell maybe youll havve me nearby  
CA: as your superior officer  
AG: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh, 8ring it on, Ampora!  
AG: I'll relish an actual challenge. Not that I'm keeping my hopes very high here.  
CA: hey wwhat a coincidence i think its time for my daily exercise routine  
CA: since i obvviously stay in top shape  
AG: Oooooooo8viously.  
CA: talk to you again wwhen im a little bit more ripped  
AG: Snrk.

\-- caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased pestering arachnidsGrip [AG] \--

* * *

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began pestering arachnidsGrip [AG] \--

GC: VR1SK4 4R3 YOU TH3R3  
GC: 4R3 YOU G3TT1NG TH1S  
AG: Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, WELL!  
AG: Look who it is, finally gracing me with her presence!  
AG: Where the FUCK have you been, "sis"????????  
AG: Does this mean the high and mighty Judge Pyrope has fallen so low that she's also a meaningless survivor on this chunk of rock that's claiming to 8e Earth?  
GC: 1'M NOT ON YOUR PL4N3T R1GHT NOW  
GC: 1'M CONT4CT1NG YOU FROM YOUR UN1V3RS3'S W4TCH TOW3R  
AG: What the shit does that mean?  
GC: 1T'S WH3R3 TH3 3NDG4M3 DOOR L3D US WH3N W3 B34T TH3 G4M3  
GC: W3 C4N LOOK OV3R YOUR 3NT1R3 PL4N3T FROM H3R3  
GC: 1 W4SN'T SUR3 TH3R3 W4S 4 W4Y TO COMMUN1C4T3 W1TH 4NY OF YOU THOUGH  
AG: So, what, you're here to ru8 it in my face that you 8eat the game and left me 8ehind to fade away? Is that it?!  
GC: 1'M H3R3 TO S4Y 1'M SORRY  
AG: Wow, look at all those apostrophes! You've really moved up in life!  
GC: PL34S3 DON'T P4TRON1Z3 M3 R1GHT NOW  
AG: Give me 8 reasons why I shouldn't, after eeeeeeeeverything you pulled on me! After killing me, abandoning me in the 8u88les, and leaving me here alone on this 8oring planet for THREE YEARS!  
GC: B3C4US3 YOUR WORLD 1S GO1NG TO CR34T3 4 COPY OF SBURB SOON  
GC: 4ND 1 W4NT YOU TO PL4Y 1T

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is happening I guess.
> 
> I debated a long time about writing this. It had always been in the back of my mind that I might revisit this AU once we had more material from canon to mirror, but at the same time, Constants & Variables is a complete story as-is. It doesn't _need_ a fourth act, even if I have tempting ideas for one.
> 
> That's why I'm posting this as a separate fic instead of continuing the old one: if you like the original as-is, this continuation won't alter it and you can reject this like any other sequel. I'm not saying that because I don't have faith in my storytelling abilities, but because I recognize that Act 4 is going to be a very different beast that might not appeal to the same audience. My writing has evolved, for one, but more importantly, C&V Acts 1-3 were written out of love for the source material. Act 4 is written out of spite.
> 
> I've made no secret that I utterly despise the retcon arc and everything that came with it. That will probably come through in Act 4. This AU may be about mirroring canon, but nothing says a mirror has to be flattering.


	2. Act 4.1

ERROR:

PROCESS INTERRUPTED

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REBOOTING

* * *

A young troll crashed to the floor. It just so happened that he'd fallen asleep during one of his best friend's patented movie marathons. Though he was embarrassingly prone to sleeping during movies and waking with a jolt afterwards, this was the first time he'd fallen off the couch.

His name was Dave Strider.

Sort of.

Another red-blooded troll had already claimed dibs on the "Dave Strider" brand name. That was the normal Dave who had always resided in the alpha timeline.

The clumsy Dave was a stowaway from a doomed timeline who, by Sgrub's standards, should have died a longass time ago, but he dodged that fate when he made physical contact with a game-breaking glitch. The ensuing infection stripped him of his "doomed" status, but it also overwrote his free will and warped his body into a static-y mess of graphical glitches, reducing him to little more than the glitch's puppet.

His friends rescued him, eventually. By the time they'd tracked him down and wrested him free from the mind control, though, the glitch had spent over one million sweeps using his Knight of Time powers to rewrite history, so his body had permanently mutated into forty kinds of chaos and his memories were in tatters. Even after a sweep and a half of freedom, he was still picking up the pieces of what it meant to be the ironic coolkid of his past.

So he didn't get to be Dave Strider anymore. He was just Daveglitch, or TG, or "hey kid."

Right then, he was the asshole who passed out at inappropriate moments and toppled off the goddamn couch.

His think pan blared with a high-pitched buzzing. It was as if someone had shoved an alarm into his sponge with no way to slap the off button. The air sparked like electricity and every breath felt like inhaling water.

"TG?" Jade's voice echoed from somewhere above him. "TG, are you okay?"

"Wh*at ha/ppeNed?" Daveglitch said, his voice filtered and robotic. He tried to climb back to his feet, but his body refused to cooperate. It did that when his emotions distracted him; his usual static doubled its volume and his limbs glitched out, clipping through solid objects -- at least he hadn't fallen through the floor again. "What wenT wron^g?"

"Uhh, you passed out during the movie, dude, and now you're flailing on the floor like an idiot," John said, using his Windy Thing to lift Daveglitch off the floor. "It's okay, though. I forgive you for falling asleep, even if you've been missing a really good movie. I know you're very bad at noticing when you're tired and that this wasn't a commentary on my awesome film taste."

Daveglitch righted himself with his own powers, pulling his legs up and floating at eye-level as if he were sitting on an invisible couch. "But s*hit's _wr0ng._ " He rubbed at his forehead, peering at Jade and John from around his hand. If they felt the same shift in atmosphere that he did, they were hella better at hiding their concern. "You doN't fe(el it?"

Jade reached for Daveglitch's shoulder, fumbling until she found it. Most of the time his visuals matched up with his solid form, but just then his shit was out of whack, so her fingers had to grip the air two inches from his arm to make contact. "It was probably just a bad dream that woke you up," she said, squeezing his shoulder. "I get those sometimes when I sleep outside of sopor slime too!"

"Jeeeez, you still aren't used to nightmares?" John fumbled for the remote so he could pause the movie before it got too far ahead. "You need to carry a recuperacoon in your sylladex or something, dude."

"It iSn't a d#ream!" Daveglitch snapped. "It's likE..." It felt like cold hands on the back of his neck. Or like remembering that the stove was lit and unattended. "I d0n't know whAt it is, but i*t ain't fuckinG go0d."

Jade slid to her feet and wrapped an arm around him. "Shoooosh... Do you need your moirail, TG?"

"I can go get him," John said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "I'll scoop him off his hooves and bring him in, kicking and screaming vulgarities. I'm not sure how calming that is, but at least he's your moirail, right?"

Daveglitch scanned the block for signs that shit was off, just something to confirm he wasn't overreacting, but it was like chasing a fleeting glimpse that stayed at the corner of his vision no matter how fast he turned his head. "Kark^at's sho0shpaps aRen't gonna fix thi*s."

"Well..." Jade caught his face in both hands so he couldn't look away from her. "Try closing your gander bulbs and breathing deeply." She nudged his lids down with her thumbs and held them closed until he took his first deep breath. "It was just a silly nightmare, TG. It's okay."

His every instinct screamed that it wasn't a nightmare, but he didn't exactly have the widest knowledge of dreams and their after effects to draw on. His body only became capable of sleep a few perigees ago, when Roxy cracked open his programming and did her best to sort out the mess the glitch had left behind.

On the fourth breath, his body and its visuals snapped into one and the same -- almost like he was a normal asshole instead of a glitchy freak. The foreboding atmosphere lessened but it wasn't gone. It was more like he was acclimating to a bad smell: it wasn't comforting, but at least it wasn't overwhelming anymore.

"Hey, Jade?" Daveglitch mumbled, tugging at her sleeve. "Can I kisS yo(u?"

She grinned and nuzzled her nose against his. "Okay," she said, and initiated the kiss herself like she was a Thief of Thunder instead of a Witch of Space.

John sighed loudly, staring at the frozen TV. "Why do you always ask her that? That's not what Dave does."

Jade frowned. "John, don't be mean!"

"I'm not being mean, I am just pointing out things that are true." John rolled his eyes. "Like that Dave doesn't ask Terezi if it's okay before he kisses her."

"Kark*at said it's imp0rtant to cheCk," Daveglitch muttered, studying the wall rather than risking eye contact with John.

"What?" John squawked. He puffed up and crossed his arms. "Oh my god, that asshole gets mad at me whenever I ask him whether it's an okay time to kiss him!"

"Ummm, I'm sure that's because of context though, you know?" Jade said with a forced smile. "You were probably asking him at kind of silly times, like on dates and stuff."

John threw his hands in the air. "Well, you and Daveglitch have been dating for practically sweeps! How's that any different?"

"The differenc+e is that Karkat expects yoU to have the ha/lf a sponge required to read the block." Daveglitch backed away from Jade. "My hea*d can still end up five blocks away, so I don't ge)t the luxury of assuming I knoW my matesprit's mood."

"Well, dude, because I am your friend who cares about you, I will pass on a cheat sheet so simple even wigglers can understand it: your matesprit is always happy like mine is always angry," John said with a sage nod. He flopped back against the couch. "Now that you aren't flipping out like a crazy person, let's finish the movie."

Daveglitch wasn't sure he agreed with John's assessment of Jade, but John was already fumbling with the remote and Jade made no effort to defend her myriad of emotions, so it wasn't worth starting an argument.

What did he know about anything when he was the idiot still watching out of the corner of his eye for a disturbance that everyone else insisted was a dream?

* * *

Jane had no memory of returning to Alternia. Under most circumstances, solving that mystery would have taken her top priority, but she barely had time to register the familiar skyline before the ground collapsed beneath her feet and she was submerged in water.

She held off the instinct to gasp and instead kicked out, holding her breath until she broke air again. A dark ocean spread to the horizon in all directions, with only a single hive towering out of the water in the distance.

With few other options at her disposal, she set out for the building. She could worry about the "where," "how," and "why" of her situation once she removed "drowning" from the possibilities. Her swimming technique was out of practice, but she was fit enough that the jaunt didn't even wind her by the time she climbed out of the water.

She hadn't set hoof on Alternia in at least ten sweeps, maybe more, yet she recognized the constellations as if they were the walls to her respite block. She'd spent her childhood chasing after her hopbeast of a lusus underneath those stars, and then she'd traveled by foot with Dirk and Jake on their ultimately futile rebellion, using the stars for a map when they couldn't risk the roads.

Except, of course, Alternia and the rest of its universe were long gone. Even if the glitch hadn't destroyed them in its dying breath, she couldn't have instantaneously traveled there without her knowledge.

There had to be a logical explanation for her predicament. No matter how she racked her sponge though, she found no logic, which left only one possibility: she was dreaming. Her subconscious was pulling quite the prank on her, dumping her into such a vivid dream. If she pinched herself, she might have even felt it.

The only odd detail was the second moon. The purple moon was exactly as she remembered it, but where in the world had her imagination concocted a green moon to go alongside it?

"Jane?" said a familiar voice Jane hadn't heard in a very long time.

Jane sat up and spotted a pair of antler-like horns protruding from the water. Roxy's head quickly followed as she swam closer with the natural grace of aquatic trolls. She hoisted herself onto the platform next to Jane, close enough to confirm what Jane already suspected: Roxy was nothing more than a pupa, no older than eight sweeps at absolute most. Even more concerning, her gander bulbs were pure white, no orange or gray or fuchsia to be found.

Roxy gave Jane's arm a nudge, smiling widely. "Wow, you're like a grown-up! That means you're the Jane from the timeline that's trying to fix shit, right?"

Jane was too busy gaping to form a proper reply. "What?"

"Oh, sorry t'greet you all sudden-like without even introducing my dumbass self." Roxy wrinkled her nose and batted at her own head as if in penance, then offered a hand. "I'm another Roxy. I haven't been here long, but you living guys are kinda famous in the bubbles."

Jane accepted the handshake, but her arm stayed limp, letting Roxy do all the work. "I am... very baffled."

Roxy shrugged. "Yeah, s'kinda weird, but I'm gettin' used to it." She straightened, looking Jane right in the gander bulbs with a sudden serious look. "Listen though, if you're doing all those good deeds anyway, can you help Callie? She's out here somewhere and I can't find her, but she's in deepass trouble!"

Jane tilted her head. Not that dreams were known for their cohesive plots, but her subconscious had cooked up quite a doozy this time. "Not to minimize the urgency of the situation, but who's Callie?"

Roxy drew back as if offended. "Who's Callie? Only the best green alien friend a girl could ever hope for!" She pouted. "Didn't you meet her in your timeline?"

"I really don't think I did."

Roxy's face fell and she bit her lower lip. "Oh crap, maybe that doesn't happen in timelines where we grow up." She leaned forward. "Callie is really sweet and friendly, okay? She don't deserve the shit she's gotta deal with out here and I don't think there's much us ghost jerks can do for her."

Jane rubbed the side of her head. She wished she were better at lucid dreaming. "I'm still not entirely sure what's happening."

Roxy rested a hand on Jane's arm. "Just... if you run into her, watch out for her, okay? She needs a friend and I knew fer a fact that Jane Crockers make hella awesome friends."

"Crockers?" Jane asked.

Before Roxy could explain the word, the sky glowed in a sudden burst of green, as if the second moon had exploded.

Roxy's gander bulbs went wide and she tensed, ducking her head. "Shit, we need to get out of here or we're fuckin' toast," she whispered.

"What?" Jane peered into the sky but it was too bright to stare long and she could only make out the faintest outline of a large figure. "What's going on?"

"We got some bad company." Roxy caught Jane's shoulders in a firm grip "Sorry 'bout this. Normally I'd never hit a friend, but you need to survive this." She smacked Jane across the face.

Jane woke with a start, back in the safety of her recuperacoon. It was such a sudden transition that it felt like teleporting, except her clothes were dry, aside from a little slime.

She climbed out of the recuperacoon if only to reorient herself. She wasn't on Alternia, or on any planet at all, because she lived in a strange floating building in the post-credits of a game she'd never even played. There were no oceans or moons inside her respite block and Roxy was a grown troll instead of a pupa.

Jane did a double take. She hadn't expected to come face-to-face with Roxy again so soon after the dream, but Roxy stood in the doorway as if she knew Jane's mind needed anchored back to reality.

Roxy mirrored the surprise, but she recovered with a smile. "Hey, I was juuuust about to wake you! It's almost time for your dumb patrol!" She hesitated, looking Jane up and down. "You don't look too hot, Janey. I mean, you're always my hot matesprit, but right now you're kinda pale and confused-looking."

"I think my sopor slime has gone bad." Jane shook her head, taking a deep breath as she wiped a dallop of slime off her cheek. "I just had the weirdest dream."

Roxy slid an arm around Jane's back. "Maybe you ate somethin' funny. Sometimes those alchemiters spit out weird shit when you just want a good ol' grubloaf sandwich. Never know if it's gonna think you want it to include some human mayo-naze."

"Roxy, we... never met anyone named Callie, did we?"

"Nnnnope, not while I was around. I dunno what kind of crazy adventures you had during your rebellion with the boys though." Roxy rested her head on Jane's shoulder, careful to tilt it so her long horns didn't bump into Jane's throat. "How come?"

Jane sighed. She must have still been half-asleep if she was asking such ridiculous questions. "Nothing. It's silly."

"Hey, you know I love silly." Roxy squeezed Jane around the middle. "Lay it on me!"

"It's just a name from my dream. I wondered if my subconscious picked it up from somewhere." Jane poked Roxy on the nose. "You were there, but you were a pupa for some reason, no older than Rose."

Roxy grinned. "Aw, neat. Was I cute?"

Jane narrowed her eyes. "I would rather not contemplate the attractiveness of someone the age of my descendant, thank you."

"Spoilsport." Roxy nuzzled against Jane's shoulder and cooed, "I always thought the selfies you sent me when we were younger were suuuper cute."

Jane smiled despite herself. "You thought _everyone_ was super cute."

"Well, you were! Are!" Roxy huffed. "It's not my fault everyone is so fuckin' attractive, all right?"

Jane chuckled as she detached from Roxy's grip so she could change into a fresh, slime-free set of clothes. A silly little dream wasn't worth dillydallying long enough that she made Dirk wait.

Maybe a stressful, bizarre dream was just her mind's way of coping with all the weight on her nubs.

Play a game, create a universe, and be rewarded with the task of guarding it as immortal gods. Jane wasn't sure it was an arrangement she would have agreed to, given the opportunity, but it was a sight better than her previous job description as a blackmailed general working on the warship of a genocidal glitch.

All the same, sometimes sprites, dream selves, and frog breeding all seemed like an elaborate joke her descendant was playing on her.

* * *

"Are you certain we shouldn't include Karkat in this?" Kanaya checked for eavesdroppers, but the hallway remained empty. Most hallways were, on account of the wild surplus of them in a giant building with only twelve occupants to accommodate, and she and Terezi had chosen to set up their computer lab far from the common stomping grounds. "He won't like that we didn't tell him."

Terezi let out a bark of laughter. "You want that loudmouth throwing his signature shitfit over this? I mean, I don't care if it pisses _him_ off, but the trolls might investigate the screaming." She tapped her cane across the floor, which was rare for her, but she couldn't find her way just by memory since they were off the beaten path. Kanaya wished she could reach out and guide her by hand, but Terezi swatted at her every time she'd tried in the past.

"If the others would unanimously stop us if they knew our plan, are we actually making the wisest decision?" Kanaya asked with a frown.

Terezi sighed in exaggeration, though her toothy grin didn't falter. "The _others_ think friendship is a disease, Kanaya. Their troll brains probably can't begin to comprehend why we'd put this much effort into a reunion." She shrugged. "It's just another case of culture shock."

Kanaya furrowed her brow in thought. Even after living with the trolls for three years, their cultural norms still evaded her at times, and likewise the trolls found Earth customs baffling, but for as much as they scoffed at the word "friendship," they practiced it with as much enthusiasm as any human. "They might understand," Kanaya said. "Whether she'd consider it an illness or not, Rose would die to save her friends."

"But would our young empress risk her friends to save some useless jerks?" Terezi asked, which gave Kanaya even more to carefully mull over. Instead of waiting for Kanaya to come up with an answer, Terezi said, "Where are we now?"

Kanaya glanced at the nearest door, which was coated in hand drawn cut-outs of flowers and animals, with one doodle in the corner of werewolf Hella Jeff courtesy of Dave. "We are passing Jade's room on the left."

Terezi nodded. "That's what I suspected. I can take it from here. Thanks, Maryam." She eased up on her tapping as she moved into familiar ground. "I'll pester you when it's time to continue our nefarious schemes later."

Kanaya knew not to take much stock in Terezi's careless wording, but she didn't appreciate the inclusion of "nefarious." Sburb operated in a never-ending cycle; it was hardly nefarious to take advantage of a pre-existing system to transport their Earth-bound friends back into the game's dimension.

Of course things could go terribly wrong, given the game involved, but that's what the contingency plans were for.

She split ways with Terezi and wandered down a corridor that was structurally identical to the rest. At least there were decorations to mark the way now that she was in the common living areas. Rose's candles were installed on the metal walls and Jade's potted plants lined the path -- Dave and Terezi swapped out new chalk graffiti every few weeks to complete the hodgepodge of aesthetic tastes. It brought a little life to an otherwise sterile excuse for a home.

For a time, they'd called their post-game living quarters "the giant, strange, lab-like building that floats around the Genesis Frog's heart like a protective ring," but that was a mouthful, so John proposed they dub it the watch tower instead. No one actually liked that name and alternatives were debated, but when put to a vote, John's suggestion still won by default of being the least obnoxious to repeat.

Kanaya was still partial to "the needlessly complicated maze of a facility," but she supposed that didn't shorten the name by much.

She slipped through her bedroom door, making as little noise as possible, but her efforts were wasted. Rather than soaking in her recuperacoon like Kanaya had expected, Rose was curled up on the fancy couch they'd alchemized together two years back, staring at the wall.

"Rose?" Kanaya whispered, at first uncertain if trolls could sleep with their eyes open. "I thought you were sleeping."

Rose pushed herself into a sitting position. "Well, insomnia's a bitch." She ran a hand over her face, frowning. "And now I can't shake the feeling I just broke the rule of three."

Kanaya furrowed her brow. "The what?"

Rose let out a weary sigh. "Nothing. I'm glad you're back." She straightened to look Kanaya in the eye. "I sensed that I needed to talk to you about something."

Kanaya went still, trying not to show the unease that her escapade with Terezi might have already been discovered. "Yes?"

Rose's lips went thin and she was silent for a long moment. Finally she dropped her gaze. "I don't sense that anymore."

Kanaya relaxed and stepped over to sit next to Rose. "Is something wrong?"

"Maybe. Hopefully not." Rose drew her legs up and rested her arms on her knees.

"Would you like to talk about it?" Kanaya asked, though she suspected she already knew the answer. It was a rare day when Rose would vent to her matesprit instead of her moirail.

"God no," Rose muttered. After a moment of awkward silence, she looked up. "Where were you?"

Kanaya folded her hands in her lap. "I would not like to talk about that either." Revenge for elusiveness wasn't as satisfying in practice as it was in theory. "Maybe you should try sleeping again? It's not good to go too long without a proper rest."

Rose smiled weakly. "I'll be fine. I don't need as much sleep as a human would." She bit her lip. "Kanaya, I..."

When silence fell again, Kanaya said, "If you're troubled by something, I would not mind if you shared it with me."

Rose shook her head. "Nothing. It's nothing." She rested a hand against the the couch, near Kanaya's leg. "Just be careful."

For all the worry that Rose would suss out Terezi's plan in a heartbeat, Kanaya was growing more concerned that Rose was hiding her own secret. That was probably fair.

Kanaya set her hand on top of Rose's and they sat together without looking at each other.

* * *

"You know this is pure fucking poppycock, right?"

Dirk stuck his hands in his pockets and stared out at the stars and worlds that flickered in the unfathomable distance, taking his sweet time before he answered. There was no need to rush into an argument, after all. "I don't know that. I'm afraid you'll have to enlighten me, Harley."

"How many nights have we lived in this strange, slightly divine dimension?" Jake asked, waving his arm at the building below their feet and the glowing, slowly beating blood pusher that sat in the center of the watch tower.

"Coming up on eleven hundred soon," Dirk said without inflection.

"And how many blasted enemies have invaded in that time?"

Dirk didn't have to look to know Jake was frowning at him. "Zip."

"Darn tootin' it's a big fat zero! And yet here we are." Jake sighed miserably and rubbed at his head just below a horn. "First you tried building killer robot guards no one wanted skulking around, then you tried convincing Rose that we all needed a daily training regimen that she shot down, now you want us taking shifts watching for nonexistent hive invaders. At what point do you just admit that you can't stand living a quiet life like a normal troll?"

"No normal troll in history has lived a quiet life, Jake," Dirk said, holding in a sigh. He'd spent centuries wishing Jake could grow a torso pillar. Well, his wish was granted and the end result was just a new kind of awkwardness.

"I was going to," Jake said, one step short of pouting.

Dirk couldn't help rolling his eyes, but at least his shades blocked it from view. "You wanted a life of adventure."

"Quiet, safe adventure!" Jake paced along the edge of the roof. It wouldn't matter much if he fell; either he'd remember he could fly or he'd just revive because "stupid" didn't count towards a permanent death. "Padding alongside my lusus through caves and over mountains, pointing my guns only on wild lusii, camping under any shade I could find..." He went quiet, then barely whispered, "Instead we spent centuries rotting as prisoners of a monster from some blasted game we knew nothing about." He crossed his arms and looked away.

It was a rare moment that guilt didn't churn in the back of Dirk's mind, but there were times it overtook him like a tidal wave. He took deep breath. "You don't have to stay out here with me, dude."

Jake looked back in surprise, faltering. "I-I didn't mean..."

"What did you mean?" Dirk asked, waiting a good fifteen seconds for Jake to respond to no avail. Jake's torso pillar still needed some strengthening exercises before it could support his weight for very long. Dirk clasped Jake's shoulder. "Go inside and chill, dude. Try not think about theoretical dangers for a while."

Jake fidgeted. "Well... well, if you're insisting, I suppose I could do that."

"Go." Dirk leaned down to give him a short kiss. "Jane's due to help me hold down the fort soon anyway."

Even when miserable and angry, Jake still didn't have the guts to just leave, but Dirk's permission was enough to send him inside. Maybe Jake would always remain a wimp deep down, maybe he carried his own guilt for the one time he had managed to walk away from Dirk.

Dirk sat on the edge of the roof, dangling his legs over the side as he stared into the infinity surrounding them. He knew damn well that he was acting out of paranoia when he spent hours just watching for something to go wrong, but if there were no dangers left in the post-game, why was their new home situated so perfectly to watch for it?

For living next to a giantass blood pusher, there was a severe lack of blood or veins in the air. Given the universe was a goddamn frog, it was probably best not to question the nitty gritty details behind it.

"You're not vacillating with Jake again, are you?" Jane called, floating up the side of the building. It was still surreal to watch her -- or any other troll -- fly without even a pair of wings, but such was life after being forced into god tiering when none of them even knew what that meant.

"Not yet, but I'm probably pushing it." Dirk climbed back to his feet to greet her properly as she landed. "Hey. If you're miserable spending half the night up here for no reason, you don't have to humor me."

Her eyebrows went up. "Why would I be miserable? It's a lovely view and I get to spend a few hours with my friend." She shot a piercing gaze his direction. "Is that why Jake left early?"

"He's running out of patience for my paranoid bullshit." Dirk ran a hand over his face. "You know the gist by now. Let's just talk about something else."

"Well, all right," Jane said with hesitation. She folded her arms behind her back. "Did Kanaya show you her latest sketches?"

Dirk scowled. She would tease him with a subject almost as uncomfortable as his rocky relationship status.

She smirked, slipping around to his opposite side when he turned his head away. "She worked hard to recreate TG's descriptions of the God Tier outfits we missed out on. I'm sure she must have gotten the designs to you."

"How about we don't go down this subject either?"

"Oh, but I thought my Maid of Life outfit was pretty cute," she said innocently. "I wouldn't mind at all if Kanaya made good on her offer to sew them up for us."

He shuddered. "Hell fucking no."

She giggled. "Here I figured you'd be jumping at the chance to see Jake in that Page of Hope getup."

Fuck, she would plant the image of Jake's beautiful bare legs in his sponge. And she hadn't even used her cerulean-blooded telepathy to do it. (Not that she'd ever managed to crack into his mind before.) He shook it away. "Not worth it."

"I don't know, Strider." She cupped her chin in her hand and looked him over as if thoughtfully summing him up. "Poofy pants might suit you."

"Tell Kanaya to save her fabric, because I will fucking burn those things if she ever gets them near me."

She straightened with a pout. "Spoilsport."

He tapped the tip of his shades. "I have a brand to maintain, and those duds aren't cool enough on any level to match my badassitude."

"It's not ironic?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He smirked and leaned in close. "Jane Egbert, are you blackflirting with me?"

She leaned back abruptly. "What? Heavens no!" she said, her face turning bright blue. "I mean, no offense, you're a swell and good-looking friend, but I don't hate you."

He nodded, giving her some personal space back. "Cool, 'cos it'd suck to have to turn down both my lady friends."

She sighed, rubbing at her face as if she could remove the blush with just a napkin and a little spit. "You're so odd. It's like you have one of those human sexual orientations or something."

He shrugged. "Hey, I already have their blood color. Maybe I picked up on that weird 'homosexuality' thing from them too."

She chuckled, but as she opened her mouth, a bright flash caught their attention. They turned in tandem to investigate, but the light had already faded. All they found was Daveglitch floating a few feet above the watch tower.

Dirk exchanged an uneasy glance with Jane. When the hell had Daveglitch come outside, let alone flown up behind them? Neither of them was unobservant on their worst night and the kid wasn't exactly skilled at stealth either, the way his body flickered and sparked with broken pixels.

Jane floated up to him. "Daveglitch?" She cleared her throat. "Er, I mean, TG? What was that light?"

Daveglitch contorted his mouth into something resembling a smirk. He hadn't worn that twisted expression in over a sweep, not since Karkat and John had rescued him from his digital parasite long before they'd made home in the watch tower.

She shot backwards to rejoin Dirk as they both reached for their strife specibus. "Dirk, tell me my gander bulbs are playing tricks on me," she whispered, holding an arm up to shield him.

Dirk tightened his grip on his katana and stepped out of Jane's protection, his gaze locked on Daveglitch for the first sign of an attack. "Afraid they're not, Egbert."

Jane clenched her teeth even as her gander bulbs widened in horror. "But this isn't _possible._ We killed him!"

Daveglitch let out a robotic chuckle that sounded nothing like the young boy Karkat doted on. "SurpRis^e, b1tch." He raised a broken, static-coated broadsword. "Be/t yoU th*ought you'd se3n th#e lAst 0f me."


	3. Act 4.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OTL Sorry for the lack of updates; there were technical problems getting this beta read. On less plot-heavy work, I'd just shrug and give it a super close editing session by my lonesome if I couldn't get a hold of my beta reader, but it's really heckin' hard to judge the flow of a story this heavy without outside help. I was like, surely it can't be that difficult to handle some early chapters on my own! But then, oh, lemme check my notes for this chap- TWELVE CHARACTERS IN ONE SCENE? Obviously the only choices here were to murder half the cast with a falling semi truck so I wouldn't have to write them or wait for my beta, and I think we'd all prefer the latter option. (Okay, I'm fond of the semi truck plan, but I'm surely outvoted.)

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling ghostyTrickster [GT] \--

TG: :)

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

TG: :)

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG] \--

TG: :)

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] \--

TG: :)

* * *

"Dude." It was bad enough that John had to pause the movie _again_ just so he could dig out a husktop to check why Trollian was beeping at him. And that his prankster's gambit took a major hit. And that the jerk who messaged him was sitting two feet away. Oh no, to top it all off, it had to be that goddamn emoticon grinning at him. "That's not fucking funny."

"Are yo*u talking to me?" Daveglitch asked, as if anyone was stupid enough to buy his clueless act. He may have been a weird and kinda meek Dave, but at the end of the night, Dave was Dave and Dave was an asshole.

John rolled his eyes. "You can't play innocent when you left your signature on it, numbglobes!" He snapped his husktop closed and shifted to face Daveglitch. "Look, man, if you want to learn the art of pranking, you have to understand how context works. You know what happened last time you sent me a smiley face out of nowhere?" John pressed a finger into his palm. "You fucking stabbed me. Alluding to that is not a good prank. It is dumb and bad."

Daveglitch cocked his head, responding to John's very wise teaching moment with just a dull stare as if he didn't even remember the deadly shenanigans he'd gotten up to back when he was possessed.

"Um... John?" Jade said. She had also tugged out one of her many computers and she pointed to its screen. "I got a message with a smiley face too."

John groaned and shook his hands at Daveglitch. "Oh my god, Daveglitch, you can't send your girlfriend bad pranks!"

Daveglitch scowled and drew back. "I di/dn't fucking send anythiNg."

"Well, it's your Trollian account and obviously Dave wouldn't use an emoticon if his life depended on it, so excuse me for not falling for your denial, emoticon-using Dave!"

Jade stood so she could shift to the middle of the couch, sitting between John and Daveglitch. "TG couldn't have sent it though," she said. "He's been right here under our noses."

"Daveglitch is basically half computer, Jade!" John said with a sigh, though it was pretty typical that she'd take her matesprit's side. "It's probably really easy for him to send secret messages over the Internet."

Jade's lips went thin as she drew herself up. "Stop picking on him, John! He wouldn't..." Her unjustified annoyance evaporated the instant she glanced back at Daveglitch. He'd dug out a phone to join them in their message-checking party and his hand trembled as he stared at it. "TG, what's wrong?"

Without otherwise moving, he tilted the phone so they could both see a black and red emoticon. "I got 0ne too."

A cold chill ran from John's nutrient sac to his blood pusher. Daveglitch was way too much of a pranking noob to concoct evidence that made him look like a fellow victim, but the only other dude who was supposed to have access to the turntechGodhead account definitely wouldn't have sent that smiley face.

Jade clasped her hands over Daveglitch's phone to hide the message from sight. "Don't reply to it. Let's... let's find Rose and ask if she knows about this." She smiled weakly. "Maybe Roxy can track down the source of-"

The floor shook as if an earthquake hit it. Taking to the air probably would have been the smartest move while the ground was unsteady, but John didn't remember that option until after the shaking had calmed a few seconds later. (At least everyone was already sitting so they couldn't topple off their feet.) The watch tower had never so much as trembled before in all the perigees they'd spent living there. More relevantly, the timing was way too damn close to the arrival of Dave's out-of-character text.

Jade leapt to her feet, a rifle already equipped as if she expected an enemy to burst through the door at any moment. John hurried to join her, even if he didn't see the point of a weapon yet. The watch tower was too fucking big for anything to hunt them down _that_ fast.

"W(hat the hell a/re you doing?" Daveglitch asked with a strained voice, leaning forward to cling to Jade's sleeve.

"If the thing that sent those messages is here, we need to stop it," Jade said without even a little hesitation, because she was pretty badass when she wanted to be. So much for ever finishing their damn movie, but whatever. Duty first and all. "I think I can sense odd movement above us, so I am going to teleport us up a few floors. Until we know where that impact came from, it's safest if none of us are alone, okay?"

"It's ac*tually kinda safest if we don't go towards fucking d#anger," Daveglitch said, increasing his grip.

"Well, it's that or let the danger find someone else first, and obviously we're not doing that," John said as he plucked his best hammer from his strife specibus. Whoa, okay, his arm was a little unused to holding that much weight anymore, but he'd probably get the hang of it again. Like riding a two-wheeled moving device.

Jade glowed as she extended her powers to John and Daveglitch. They shot away and landed in an empty corridor. Daveglitch shifted closer to Jade, keeping his grip on her arm. Bringing him along was maybe not their brightest idea that night, since John was pretty sure Daveglitch still wasn't allowed to carry weapons just in case, well... in case he went nuts again. But what else were they supposed to do with him?

"Uhh..." John glanced around, but he didn't spot anything even a little suspicious nearby. It was just an empty corridor, one of something like a billion others. "Best two out of three, Jade?"

She frowned. "I was pretty sure I sensed..." she began, but poor Jade had really bad luck finishing sentences that night without something interrupting.

Dirk crashed through the ceiling, landing maybe ten feet ahead of them with a wincingly hard thud. Streaks of bright red blood ran down his face and arms. The strongest fighter they had didn't look like he'd be climbing to his feet anytime soon.

John raised his gaze to the freshly made hole in the ceiling, then he did a double take to check they hadn't lost track of Daveglitch in the teleportation process, but nope, he was still clinging to Jade's arm. There were just two of him and the one floating above them had Dirk's blood splattered on his face.

There were already too many fucking Daves around.

The new Daveglitch dove at Dirk with a glitchy sword in hand. Dirk only managed to move enough to shift the would-be chest wound to a shoulder wound. He let out a choked cry of pain, fumbling for his katana and just dropping it with each attempt to grip it.

"Get away from him, you rotten addle pate!" Jane yelled from outside, appearing a moment later as she chased the new Daveglitch through the corridor with a vengeance. She swiped a giant fork at him, but he dodged aside before any of the prongs could so much as scratch him.

"TG?" Jade called, as if the violent asshole could possibly be _their_ Daveglitch when obviously he was not. At least she was still smart enough to keep her rifle at the ready.

The new Daveglitch glanced Jade's direction, then flashstepped behind them. "Lo0k wh+o it iS. My bBb*est bRo and my f=avorite hOst."

John had never shot away so fast in his life, holding his hammer up for what little protection it offered should glitchy possession give chase, but Daveglitch was more interested in studying his double.

The not-violent Daveglitch jolted away, finally releasing Jade, and backed up until he hit the wall. "No, n^o, no, fuck, Fuck, fuck," he said, his eyes wide in terror, without even a wiggler's training weapon to defend himself.

"C'mo(nNn, dude, jus#t one LitTttle toUch a&nd yOu'll be bac^k wh*ere you bElong," the violent Daveglitch said with a sneer. He held his hand out as if offering a friendly greeting, but no idiot in a ten-mile radius would mistake that handshake for anything other than a one-trip fast lane to Creepy Parasite City.

Jade let fire at least six shots in rapid succession. Not a single bullet hit the new Daveglitch -- though one came close to putting a second hole through his already scarred horn -- but it drew him away from stalking the regular Daveglitch long enough for Jane to catch back up to him and continue her barrage.

Like hell John was going to let his ancestor fight a glitchy asshole alone. He flew in and timed his hammer strikes with her stabs, while Jade carefully fired from afar, standing protectively in front of her matesprit.

There wasn't actually room for a strife. There extra wasn't room for a strife involving four active fighters. To add insult to injury, Daveglitch just phased through the walls when any other opponent would have found himself cornered with three weapons going for his throat. He barely even struck back at them, as if he'd rather taunt them than end the battle too soon.

It wasn't like they could even aim to kill. While the glitch was embedded in a Dave, it required physical contact to transfer to a new body, but as soon as it lost its host, it would just burst out of the corpse and possess someone else.

They couldn't kill him, they obviously couldn't let him kill them, and they couldn't even call a time-out to discuss how to finish an unwinnable battle. The best they could do was keep the new Daveglitch busy and hope someone with a better plan showed up soon.

Reinforcements arrived in the way of Rose and Kanaya. They were both out of breath, as if they'd been running for a while before they tracked down the source of metal crashing against metal, but John couldn't have picked a better strategist to come to his rescue than Rose.

He planted himself in front of them so that Daveglitch couldn't rush them before Rose had a chance to assess the situation.

"How are there two glitched Daves?" Kanaya asked as if that was somehow the most relevant question when everyone was in danger of dying heroically.

"Well, the one attacking us is an evil jerk and the shellshocked one is ours!" John shot a burst of wind to knock Daveglitch off-balance so his stab missed Jane by a mile. "Rose, what do we do?"

"Don't let it fucking touch you!" Rose shouted with an equal mix of authority and fear.

"Well, duh!" John narrowly dodged a stab to the sponge. Striders were too goddamn fast. "I was kinda hoping for an actual plan! Like can Jade teleport him somewhere?"

Rose cringed and dug her fingers into her temples. "Let me think!"

The violent Daveglitch let out a laugh, or it might have been a laugh if it weren't about as ear-splitting as a dial tone. "He#y, my go0d moTherFuckiNg sis j^oins th*e par%ty!" he said, tilting his head back to peer at Kanaya.

Kanaya clenched her hands. "Keep your impersonation of Gamzee to yourself, creep."

He twisted out of Jane's reach, his smirk turning into a sneer. "Yea/h, I Don't neEd to imp^ersonAte sh1t. I retttTtAin all o*f my h0sts, ev*en if th^e mut+ant rin)gs str0ngest riGht noW."

"Well, thank you for the reminder that you're a parasite that doesn't deserve mercy then." Kanaya drew herself up. "John, use a gust to hurtle him towards me!"

" _What?_ " John said, using the wind to keep Daveglitch the hell _away_ from Kanaya instead. "I know it sounds cool and probably really satisfying, but splitting him in half with a chainsaw is not going to go so hot, Kanaya!"

"Just do it, preferably in a quick fashion!"

"Are you bonkers?" Jane yelled. "This isn't a job for an alien pupa to handle!" Not that she had much room to talk, with the cuts she was steadily accruing over the course of the fight. Jade was probably the only fighter who wasn't bleeding at least a little.

"But it is a job that a Sylph of Space can handle!" Kanaya clasped her hands together. "John, if you'd please hurry!"

"Okay, I agree with Jane that this sounds dumb, but okay!" John swiped his arms through the air -- the motion probably wasn't important, but it helped him concentrate -- and a huge gust shot through the corridor.

Jane and the others had to plant their feet to keep from falling over, but John concentrated the worst of the blast on the violent Daveglitch, slamming him into the air so hard that he couldn't break away before he was hurtling towards Rose and Kanaya.

Kanaya stepped forward to shield Rose and ripped open a tear in space with her bare hands, at just the right size and moment for John's gust to send Daveglitch through the dark portal. She slapped her hands together to close the tear, sealing Daveglitch inside.

John let the air fall still, but it took another few seconds before he remembered he didn't have to keep his hammer hoisted. It'd probably be a good ten minutes before his blood pusher got the memo that it could calm the hell down.

"Is it really gone?" Jane asked, lowering her weapon but not putting it away.

Kanaya took a deep breath and let it out just as slowly. "It should be. I imprisoned it inside an empty dimension."

That was enough confirmation for Jane to rush to check on Dirk while the not-evil Daveglitch sank to his knees in a stupor. Jade was the only one who kept a hand on her weapon, though her other hand rested on Daveglitch's shoulder.

John hadn't really considered that the appearance of a second Daveglitch might have meant bad things for regular Dave, but his subconscious must have been swatting around the possibility, because he felt a surge of relief when Dave came running onto the scene -- half a minute too late to catch the action -- safe and sound and not possessed. Of all people, Karkat was right on Dave's heels, but it was probably just coincidence that they had similar timing. Maybe it was a Knight thing.

" _What,_ " Karkat said, huffing to catch his breath as he looked over the mess from the battle, "the almighty asslicking hell did we just miss?"

* * *

The title of "empress" was a joke, a sarcastic honorific drawled by Dave and a playful nickname bestowed by Jade. Rose Lalonde was the rightful ruler of eight other trolls, plus three humans who didn't even operate under troll law, and all that authority actually meant was that everyone counted on her to shut down Strider bullshit and not much else.

Technically speaking, the agenda for the night was still dealing with a Strider's disruptive shenanigans. That did little to bolster any confidence that she could handle such a heavy duty.

All twelve inhabitants probably hadn't shared a single block together since Dave organized an ironic wriggling day party for John's seventh sweep a few perigees back. It figured that it took an emergency to recreate a complete gathering. Even a shitty slam poetry karaoke party would have been preferable over a meeting to discuss that Daveglitch had turned homicidal again.

They didn't even have the space for a meeting with full attendance on such short notice. They just co-opted the nearest block already furnished with seating options, which meant Rose faced her concerned citizens with a large television at her back.

"So what's the game plan here?" Dave asked, lounging back in a chair with Terezi in his lap, his couldn't-care-less coolkid shtick on full blast -- which only meant he was as on-edge as the rest of them.

Rose didn't know. Her blood pusher still had a ways to go before it slowed to its normal beat and it took utmost concentration to keep fear out of her expression. She couldn't admit that their leader was just as lost as the rest of them though, so her mind raced for a reply that would pacify when she had no solutions. Everything was going so wrong so fast.

John groaned. "Oh my god, Dave, pay attention!" He gestured at Kanaya, who flanked Rose opposite him. "Kanaya already took care of the problem."

John was a better moirail than anyone deserved, let alone Rose. He had her back even when he didn't know it. (She tried to ignore the jealousy that he'd already shrugged off the shock from a battle he took direct part in. Sometimes a short attention span was a blessing.)

"If anyone believed that was a long-term solution, we wouldn't be gathered here to fret about it in solidarity. What kind of security does a Sylph of Space employ in one of their homemade dimensions?" It would be Dirk to burst John's optimistic bubble without hesitation or mercy.

Jane had already healed Dirk's most alarming wounds back at the scene of the crime. His quadrantmates still corralled him into lying on the couch both so he couldn't aggravate his remaining injuries and so they could concentrate their nervous energies on something manageable like doting on a friend. Roxy leaned over the back of the couch and Jake sat with Dirk's head in his lap while Jane knelt beside them to treat the remaining cuts.

Jane and John suffered more than a few of their own minor injuries, but their opponent had clearly homed in on Dirk. It wouldn't be the first time the glitch had targeted Dirk for a disproportionate share of pain. Rose wondered if it had absorbed some of Dave's hangups -- the disgust towards his mutation, his discomfort with ancestors, the whole self-conscious song and dance -- or if it had its own reasons for loathing Dirk. Not that she'd have a chance to ask the glitch such personal questions anytime soon.

"I'm sorry, what?" Kanaya asked, blinking in surprise. "Security?"

Dirk tried to straighten up, but Jake grabbed him by the shoulders and Roxy threatened to sit on him. With a sigh, he went still and said, "There's no guarantee that the bastard can't break out, dudette."

"I hope this doesn't sound boastful," Kanaya said, clasping her hands and running her fingers over each other in a fidget, "but if it hasn't managed to escape yet, perhaps my powers are beyond its ability to fight."

"Yeah, I am waaaay more concerned about why the glitchy jerkwad showed up here, honestly." Roxy sounded as tired as anyone, but she managed some enthusiasm as she rested her elbows on the back of the couch and raised her palm towards Kanaya. "I'ma give Kanaya a hella high-five next time she's close enough, 'cos she did a fuckin' awesome job."

Kanaya's cheeks darkened and she cleared her throat.

"What was fucking awesome about it?" Karkat scoffed, his grimace deeper than usual. He sat on the floor in the corner of the block along with Jade and Daveglitch.

Neither he nor Jade had left Daveglitch's side since the skirmish. Daveglitch kept his head lowered, showing no reaction to Jade's grip on his arm or the conversation in general, as if his trauma was still so fresh that he couldn't even process the reunion with his former parasite.

Jade shot Karkat a frown. "Hey, no, Kanaya's great and you know it!"

Karkat groaned and rolled his head back. "I'm not saying Kanaya doesn't deserve a cookie for being the only useful asshole in the entire fucking building! She deserves all the goddamn cookies she wants!" He curled his lip. "But isn't solitary confinement a cruel and unusual punishment? Why are we celebrating that we had to stoop that?"

"Because celebrating iffy accomplishments is the hip new way to detox from shellshock, probably," Terezi said with a dark laugh. She shifted to slide her arm around Dave's shoulders. "You got an alternative? Should we have bound up the glitchy coolkid when he can phase through objects? Killed him so the glitch broke free and snagged itself a new host?"

"I don't fucking know, but maybe we should keep brainstorming instead of shrugging it off like sadistic shitheads!" Karkat clung to Daveglitch's sleeve. "Or are we just going to stick our heads in the sand and pretend there's not a chance that we just imprisoned a time traveling TG from the future?"

John furrowed his brow. "Wait, you guys think that new guy was the same Daveglitch as ours?"

Rose's lips went thin. "That's the assumption I think most of us have been operating on, yes." She wasn't quite willing to admit aloud that she was obligated to prioritize everyone else's safety before she considered whether Daveglitch could be salvaged. The implication was loud enough already. "Dave, you have the most insight into the workings of a Knight of Time," she said, turning to Dave in hopes she could pass the baton to an expert in another field long enough for her to cultivate a strategy. "What else could be happening?"

"You know it gives me hives to agree with Vantas, but timeloops are your best bet, man," Dave said with a shrug, keeping his voice emotionless as if anyone actually believed he didn't care that history was repeating itself. "The possibility you're overlooking is that maybe glitchbro's past self had some hella adventures before we killed the glitch. He's got a good million sweeps we left uncharted, ya know?"

John facepalmed, the smack loud enough to cut off anyone else's attempt at a reply. "Why are you numbnuts wasting time with all this past and future crap?" He let out an exaggerated huff as if he were surrounded by idiots. "He's a Daveglitch from a doomed timeline!"

All eyes turned on John. Even Daveglitch raised his gaze from the floor.

"Could you... elaborate on that theory, John?" Rose asked, speaking slowly to keep the confusion out of her voice.

John shrugged. "I mean, our Daveglitch is a doomed Dave who should've died with his timeline, right? Except the glitch is a fucking cheater who rewrote the doomed status in his code from true to false." He gestured as if miming a computer screen in the air. "Switching a boolean like that is super basic programming. Why wouldn't the other Daveglitches make the same edit? They don't care that they live in doomed timelines and shouldn't claim alpha status! They're assholes!"

Jade was the first to break the silence that followed. "Oh no."

"John," Karkat said, "are you suggesting that every single Daveglitch from a doomed timeline went and fucking undoomed himself?" His volume rose as he spoke. "That there are _endless copies_ of him running around out there without even a doomed status to ensure their eventual demise?"

"Well, yeah." John scratched the side of his neck and grimaced. "That's pretty obvious, dude."

Daveglitch pulled out of his quadrantmates' grips and stood, his face a sickly shade of pale gray and yet otherwise unreadable. He made a beeline for the door without a sound or a single glance back.

Karkat scrambled to his feet, then froze and had the decency to look sheepish about following Daveglitch's rude example of bailing on a vital meeting.

Rose nodded to him. "Go. I'll debrief you later if you miss anything important."

She hadn't even finished the last word before he took off after Daveglitch. Moirallegiance came to him pretty naturally for a human.

Jade had stood as well and chewed on her lip, but she settled back on the floor crosslegged and let Karkat handle his moirail alone. She still glanced to the door every few seconds.

"Jeeeeez, what's Daveglitch's problem?" John said, wrinkling his nose.

Roxy drew a breath through her teeth. "Prooob'ly he's frettin' that we're totally fucked. Not that it's a big deal or anything."

"Well," Jade's mouth twisted into a small smile that didn't match the worry in her gander bulbs, "at least it means he doesn't get re-possessed in the future, right?"

"Y'know," Dave said, "usually 'at least' is followed by a relatively positive thought. I dunno about you, but I'd rather deal with the singular glitchbro we already know and love instead of some total rando who somehow made its way to our timeline."

Jade frowned. "It's an 'at least' because TG _is_ a Dave we know and love, and I don't want my loved ones turning into monsters again!"

Jane straightened and shook her hands off, the glow of her Life powers waning as she finished ensuring that Dirk wouldn't bleed on the furniture. "As much as I hate to wish that fate on TG," she said, "if he were our only enemy, we'd know where to expect him and we could take some reassurance that we've beaten him before."

"Just how many doomed timelines could there be?" Jake asked, his shoulders drawn up nervously.

Roxy patted the top of his head. "Jake, sweetie, I don't think any of us wanna hear the answer to that, you least of all, so maybe shut up."

Rose resisted the urge to rub her sponge or otherwise show weakness. Instead she made a mental note to scream into John's shoulder the next time they were alone. "Let's get back to something productive," she said, keeping her head raised and posture straight. "Jane, did you see how... Daveglitch The Second arrived here to begin with?"

Dave groaned. "Goddamn it, that dude had better have been a fluke, 'cos otherwise we're gonna need code names for all the glitchy assholes getting up in our space."

Kanaya cupped her chin. "If we need to differentiate the ones that are still possessed, we could code name the glitch itself Coppelia," she mused.

"What's a Coppelia?" Jade asked, tilting her head.

"Coppelia is a wind-up doll that can only come alive at the cost of a human sacrifice. She's a sort of antagonist in the ballet of the same-"

"Boooooo!" Terezi cupped her hands around her mouth. "No one watches ballet, Kanaya! That's a bad code name!"

Kanaya crossed her arms and huffed. "Well, I am going to call it Coppelia," she grumbled to the floor. "There is no reason that a homicidal digital parasite can't be a girl."

Rose raised her hands for silence. "We can call it Bob if it makes everyone happy, but please let's focus. If we know how it got here, maybe we can block off its entrance before anything else follows its lead."

"It appeared in a flash of light." Dirk propped himself up on his elbow now that his quadrantmates wouldn't pounce on him for moving. "That's all we had time to register before it was going for our throats."

"I'm pretty sure I could pinpoint the spot where it arrived. We could scope out the scene for evidence and clues!" Jane said, standing at attention with sudden enthusiasm.

Rose took a deep breath. There were so many details she had no control over, she worried they'd buried the details she still needed to prod and pry at. She could only keep the others waiting so long, though, so when a quick mental checklist brought up no outstanding meeting items, she said, "All right. Jane and Dirk, show me exactly what happened and where." She turned to Roxy. "While we work on that, I want you and Jake to see about building an alert system. A building-wide siren is ideal, but I'll settle for a phone app. If we have another invader, we need to get out the warning faster than last time."

Roxy made a sloppy salute. "Roger that!"

Jake gave Dirk's shoulder a quick squeeze before climbing to his feet. "If we can't whip up a fancy solution in enough of a jiffy, we'll jury-rig something that gets the job done."

Rose nodded, swallowing a thanks before it could slip from her mouth. Gratitude didn't pair well with orders. "Everyone else, keep your weapons in reach and avoid being alone. With any luck, we're not in immediate danger of a second attack, but stay on guard anyway."

Terezi laughed. "That's a needlessly complicated way to relay the order 'don't die,' but aye-aye, empress!"

* * *

Karkat chased after his useless bastard of a moirail. He couldn't keep up with a Strider on the best of days, and if Daveglitch decided to flashstep like a cheating asshole, Karkat would be lucky if he tracked him down within a week.

Daveglitch was his favorite Strider for a reason though. Just before Karkat started huffing and gasping from overexertion, Daveglitch slowed to a stop and slumped against the wall.

Karkat paused to catch his breath. "Uh... hey," he said, scratching at the back of his head. "I just figured I should check on you, since you ran away like you were upset or something, and I'm not enough of a snot-eating chickenfuck to ignore that."

"It's no/t oveR," Daveglitch said quietly, staring at the floor.

Karkat scowled. What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? Some people would have spewed toxic sewage and said some variation on "it'll be all right," but he wasn't in the business of lying out of his ass just to make his best friend feel better.

"Yeah, it fucking sucks, doesn't it?" he said, reaching out to pap the back of Daveglitch's head. He didn't understand why trolls liked getting smacked upside the fucking head, but Daveglitch's tense shoulders were already easing, so it sure seemed to satisfy some weird biological quirk. Karkat averted his gaze. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to clean up that fucking overflowed toilet of a mess."

"Dude, wha^t?" Daveglitch raised his head. "What wer_e you supposed to do?"

Karkat drew himself up. "Excuse fucking you? Did you forget I'm the only douchebag here with an Aspect that naturally repels that poorly coded excuse for a computer virus? Fuck you, Strider, that's my only claim to usefulness in our entire fucking magical adventure through Sburb, so don't you goddamn take that away from me!"

Daveglitch didn't even wince as Karkat showered him in loud words and furious spittle. His blank expression could give even Dirk's poker face a run for its money. "Oh," was all he said.

Karkat slapped a hand over his face so hard that the smack probably echoed across the whole damn universe. "Oh my god, I'm such an asshole." He wrapped an arm around Daveglitch's shoulders and pulled him close, renewing his papping efforts. "I'm sorry, TG, I shouldn't have fucking snapped at you. The me of thirty seconds ago is a tactless, rude, selfish loudmouth and I'd slug him if I could."

Daveglitch grunted, staring into the distance with a frown.

Karkat sighed. "Look, I'm just..." He dragged a hand down his face. "Fuck, I should have goddamn been there."

"Even your Blood p=owers couldn't have stopped the sh*it that's going down."

Karkat slumped against Daveglitch. "God dammit, taking down glitches was supposed to be my thing. I don't exactly get many things here! Rose is the know-it-all, John's the morale, Fuckface McShitshades is the speedy asshole, Jade's the long-distance shooter..."

"An&d I'm the bad guy," Daveglitch said flatly.

Karkat winced. "You know, you're allowed to fucking punch me in my goddamn mouth when I'm being a selfish snatchsniffer. You notice when past Karkat is being an insensitive dickbag faster than I do."

Daveglitch tapped his knuckles against Karkat's chin. "Ba#m. Past Karkat is punished. You're 0bligated to stop kicking yourse*lf now."

Karkat clenched his teeth and groaned to the ceiling. "Why has this turned into _you_ comforting _me_ when you're the one all fucked up and re-traumatized? Because I'm the useless shitstain who freaks out at a moment's notice and projects all my insecurities onto other people, that's why!"

Daveglitch sighed. "Oh m(y god, dude."

Karkat pointed a finger in his face. "You're the one who isn't applying duct tape to my mouth!" he shouted, his fury draining less than a second later as the guilt set in. He couldn't go two fucking seconds without making shit worse and blaming someone else for it. His shoulders slumped. "Look, what would make you feel better right now? I could read to you and make my tongue useful for once. I've been saving a Nora Roberts book for a gloomy day."

Daveglitch cracked a weak smile. "Your shi*tfits aren't actually a bAd distraction. Exasperation is an improvement ove#r crippling terror, pretty sure."

"Well, that's good fucking news, because I have an infinite supply of shitfits." Karkat huffed. "You can even pick your category like this is a shitty game show. Do you want the shitfit on how much City of Angels is criminally underrated, how much I hate myself, how much handsoap the average human being wastes on extra pumps they don't goddamn need, or how much I hate Fuckface?" he said, counting out the categories on his fingers.

"So you're fina^lly admitting you've gone black f0r Dave?" Daveglitch asked, leaning his head back to peer at him.

Karkat drew himself up as he felt heat rush to his face. "Did that fucking sound like an admission of guilt? I just used the same word to describe my feelings for him _and_ for myself, yet here I am not dating myself, so maybe you can safely assume there's no tasty gossip involving me and that aviator-toting douchebag either!"

Daveglitch was unmoved by the outburst of anger, but it was probably the thousandth time he'd witnessed such a quick switch from self-indulgent whining to fury. "You tw2o aren't exactly subtle. You arrived t/ogether earlier."

"I just happened to bump into him on the way to the same destination! That's not even a high level of coincidence!"

Daveglitch cocked his head. "MoiRails aren't suppos*ed to lie to each other, y0u know."

Karkat shot him a glare and leaned in close. "And are moirails supposed to stick their giant ugly noses up each other's assholes instead of minding their own business?" he asked.

"That is liter*ally the job desc(ription, dude."

"That is not how you use 'literally,' you metaphor-spewing hack!"

"I literally don't caRe."

Karkat clutched his face and groaned through clenched teeth. "Thank you for the periodic reminder that you really are Dave fucking Strider beneath all the shitty static."

Daveglitch went still. "You say that like it's a b%ad thing."

"What, you want to trade in your emotional honesty for a pair of shitty aviators? You're an improvement on the old model, TG, and the only person who'd disagree with that is the ironic shitmaster himself," Karkat said with a huff. When Daveglitch remained silent, Karkat faltered and bit the inside of his lip. "I said the wrong thing again, didn't I?"

"I d0n't want to be... emotional," Daveglitch murmured, raising his hands to stare at the flickering as his fingers glitched out in bursts of static and pixels. "That's not who I am. It's wh0 I wa#s for*ceD t0 be."

Karkat raised his arm, hesitated, then took his chances and clasped his hand on top of Daveglitch's. "Have you ever considered that you're approximately what would happen if Fuckface McShitshades put his bullshit facade in the garbage where it belongs?"

"If hE's got a whiny coward sitting be(neath the surface, can you bl%ame him for wearing a mask?" Daveglitch asked with a bitter smile.

"Hey, no putting yourself down with exaggerated tales of ways you suck," Karkat said firmly, tightening his grip and scowling at Daveglitch. "That's my goddamn shtick and it's too miserable to share."

Daveglitch's lips went thin. "I'm n0t putting myself down for sh*its and giggles. I froze up when my f(riends were in danger today. I... I'm stil*l..." He closed his eyes. "It trie/d to takE me back aNd that scar^es the s*hit out of me."

"Hey." Karkat slipped an arm around Daveglitch's middle. "We won't fucking let it possess you again."

"It already dug its claws into th0usands of other Daves from doom_ed timelines," Daveglitch whispered. "They're stUck. I es^caped. How the fuc*k am I supposed to feel about that?"

Karkat swallowed. He didn't have a bad answer to that, let alone a good one. No version of Dave deserved that fate, not even the asshole Dave from the alpha timeline.

Daveglitch looked up and stared Karkat straight in the eyes -- his eyes always had the highest concentration of static. "If it takEs me again, promise you'll k%ill me," he said, his voice hard.

Karkat jerked back. "What the fuck kind of rotten, defeatist, cruel promise is that?" he shouted. "We won't let that happen, dipshit! You think we're so fucking incompetent we can't protect a half-brained troll from a computer virus?"

Daveglitch caught Karkat's shoulders so he couldn't turn away. "But _if it happ*ens_..." Any confidence in his voice was betrayed by his fingers, trembling as they dug into Karkat's shirt. "If you can'T save me, let me die," he said with a quiet desperation. "Promise you w_on't make me live like t/hat again."

It was a thoughtless request even by Strider standards. Setting aside the complications of killing a glitch's host, he'd just asked Karkat to murder his best friend. No lifelong trauma could possibly follow from _that_ , nosiree-fucking-bob.

Yet the memory of Daveglitch's unhinged smirk festered in Karkat's memory as clear as if it were from yesterday. It was a smile unlike anything Dave Strider would willingly wear, sitting on Dave Strider's face, and it was accompanied with Gamzee's words, because the fucking glitch didn't just feed off its current host; it wielded an amalgamation of all of its hosts' memories as a lure for sentimental saps who still cared about said hosts, like an anglerfish wielded its glowing antenna.

Daveglitch probably remembered the same thing just as clearly. He knew from the first-person perspective what it was like to be a stew of different people glued together by an uncaring asshole claiming their names and identities for its own profit.

Begging for death was a selfish fucking request, but Karkat couldn't blame Daveglitch for it even a little.

He clenched his jaw and set his hands on both sides of Daveglitch's neck, returning his stare. "If the glitch overtakes you and we can't get you back," he said, hating himself more with each word, "I'll slit your throat myself."

* * *

It didn't take much detective work to suss out where their glitchy intruder had made its entry. Rose could have put together the clues without aid from first-hand witnesses, but Jane supposed her primary job was bodyguard rather than private eye anyway.

John floated a good fifteen feet above the top of the watch tower, circling the strange portal that had recently materialized. "It looks kinda like the gates from the game," he said, tilting his head. "Except sort of evil."

Jane didn't share that frame of reference, but she'd give him the benefit of the doubt that it was an accurate description. The "gate" glowed and flickered, with no visible indicator of what lay on the opposite end.

She rested a hand on her weapon in case the glitch had another trick up its sleeve, but the gate stayed dormant.

Rose examined it with narrowed gander bulbs, resting her chin in her hand. "Well, Mr. Strider," she said, "you have enough evidence to shove a well-earned 'I told you so' in my face."

Dirk kept his distance like a guard stalking the perimeter to complement Jane's close proximity to the kids. He also had a weapon drawn. "Trust me, kid, I'm more pissed off than anyone that my paranoia came to fruition," he said darkly. "I didn't want to be right."

"Can't Jade or Kanaya just seal this up?" John asked, mimicking the hand movements of Space players.

Rose frowned. "Possibly, but what good is bandaging up a wound if you haven't cleaned and disinfected it? If one rogue Daveglitch could create this gate, what will stop another from making a replacement?" She peered into the gate. "We need to know what's on the other side first."

"Do you think it's safe?" John asked, sticking his arm into it before anyone could answer.

Jane let out a startled yelp and yanked him back, already reaching for her Life powers in case his arm ended in a stump. Luckily for him, his hand came out no worse for wear. "What the devil were you _thinking_?" she said.

He stared blankly at her as if she were the idiot. "Well, how the hell else are we gonna find out it's safe?"

Dirk coughed to cover up a laugh.

Jane slapped a hand to her forehead. How had her descendant come out with so little common sense? Curiosity was one thing, but couldn't it have come coupled with her clever deductions?

"John, that was fucking stupid," Rose said, shooting John a disapproving stare, "but we might as well take advantage of your newfound expertise in sticking your damn arm into unknown substances. Did you feel anything on the other end?"

He shrugged. "I dunno, it was just like waving my hand through normal air. If I'd shut my gander bulbs, I couldn't have told you I'd even done it."

Rose hummed to herself, holding a knuckle over her mouth as she furrowed her brow. "Do you hear singing?"

Jane shook her head before her stare could become a gape. "No. What?" she asked, glancing at John to confirm that he was just as lost as she felt. "Sorry? Is that a trick question?"

Dirk cleared his throat. "I wouldn't have called it 'singing,' but I have been hearing something akin to voices just barely in earshot," he said, frowning at the gate. "Weird fuckin' voices, but voices."

Rose nodded. "Well, that feeds my hypothesis anyway," she murmured. "Prospit dreamers hear nothing, while Derse dreamers..."

Jane cringed. "Those are terms from that infernal game, aren't they?" No wonder she couldn't make heads nor tails of the situation, if knowledge of Sgrub was a prerequisite to solving the mystery.

Rose's mouth quirked into a smile. "I'm afraid it's my turn to do something stupid. For science."

Jane was half a second too slow to digest Rose's intentions and missed the opportunity to physically stop Rose before she plunged through the gate.

Jane was frozen in place, her mouth hanging open in horror. These children would be the death of her, they really would. At least John had only risked an arm instead of his entire body.

Dirk shot over to them. "I'm going after her."

Jane managed to grab his arm before he could disappear too. "Let's at least fashion an anchor before anyone else dives in!"

"Oh my god, you guys, Rose isn't dumb," John said, rolling his eyes. "She probably knows what she's doing."

"I was certain enough that testing my hypothesis was worth the risk, anyway," Rose said, reemerging from the gate unharmed and flicking her bangs out of her face. "And I was right, by the way."

Dirk relaxed and set his empty hand on his hip, his indifferent attitude on full blast. "You're the type who actually does relish in an 'I told you so,' ain'tcha?"

"And what exactly do you think you're right about?" Jane said through gritted teeth to keep the panic out of her voice. She still clutched at her chest in a futile attempt to calm her blood pusher.

Rose glanced back at the portal. "That's the same dimension that lay on the edge of Derse. It's where the Horrorterrors reside," she said. "Daveglitch broke a hole that leads right back into Sgrub's domain."

* * *

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG] \--

TG: jade  
TG: jade  
TG: jade  
TG: jade are y0u there  
GG: ummm o__o  
GG: tg, is that you??  
TG: yeah  
GG: why are you using dirks text color??? :O  
TG: 1... wanted t0 d1fferent1ate my messages s0 y0ull kn0w when 1ts me at a glance  
TG: and when 1ts... n0t me  
GG: ohh that is a pretty smart idea!  
GG: there wont be any jerk glitches using your typing quirks with orange text, heheh  
TG: yeah 1m try1ng n0t t0 use em0t1c0ns anym0re e1ther but 1ts a hard hab1t t0 break :\  
TG: fuck 1 meant t0 h1t backspace n0t enter  
GG: whats wrong with emoticons?  
GG: theyre fun!! i use them all the time ^_~  
TG: str1ders d0nt  
GG: and that is their loss! :p  
TG: 1t sh0uld be my l0ss t00  
TG: 1 d1dnt p1ck up that hab1t 0n my 0wn 1 had 1t sh0ved 0nt0 my appendages and glued there  
TG: all 0f my fuck1ng typ1ng qu1rks are bas1cally mental scars left fr0m the gl1tch  
GG: :(  
GG: i guess that is true...  
GG: i still like your emoticons! but if they are reminding you of bad things then it is ok if you stop using them  
TG: s0rry 1m n0t try1ng t0 be a fuck1ng d0wner here  
TG: 1 just meant t0 ask y0u s0meth1ng n0t 0pen the dams and dr0wn y0u 1n s1xty gall0ns 0f pure freshwater m0p1ng  
GG: :x  
GG: well, i didnt think it was moping!  
GG: but what were you trying to ask?  
TG: 1f s0meth1ng really fuck1ng bad was happen1ng and y0u were the 0nly 0ne wh0 c0uld st0p 1t  
TG: but st0pp1ng 1t 1s danger0us and scary and y0u m1ght n0t even succeed and m0stly y0u d0nt want t0 actually b0ther  
TG: sh0uld y0u d0 1t anyway  
GG: well.....  
GG: i think i would talk to a friend about it and tell them lots and lots of details!  
GG: because maybe it is not something i have to take on by myself after all and i just needed an outside perspective to see that! :)  
TG: ...............thats n0t what jade harley w0uld d0 thats what y0u want me t0 d0 >:|  
GG: noooo, asking friends for advice is a good rule of thumb!!  
GG: i mean why are you asking my opinion in the first place, silly? :)  
TG: because y0ure smarter than me  
GG: heheh, i dont know about THAT...  
GG: we are just smart about different things <3  
GG: but i doooo think i could help you better if you gave me more context  
TG: 1f 1 dec1de t0 g0 f0r 1t  
TG: then 1 pr0m1se 1ll tell y0u all the ugly deets bef0re 1 take the plunge  
TG: but r1ght n0w 1 need vagueass answers t0 a vagueass d1lemma  
GG: doooes this dilemma have something to do with the doomed daveglitch?  
TG: n0  
TG: maybe  
TG: n0  
TG: s0rt 0f  
TG: jade why are y0u back1ng me 1nt0 c0rners l1ke s0me k1nd 0f  
GG: ...  
GG: ...tg? are you finished?  
TG: 1m th1nk1ng 0f a metaph0r hang 0n  
GG: umm you dont really need to, i get the idea  
TG: n0 1 can d0 th1s  
TG: fuck  
TG: wa1t  
TG: FUCK  
TG: th1s 1s set up f0r a fuck1ng s1m1le n0t a metaph0r  
GG: its okay, people get those mixed up all the time! i wont tell rose on you ;)  
TG: -_-  
TG: *n0 fuck1ng em0t1c0n  
GG: you know you really dont need to take responsibility for the other daveglitch  
GG: rose will think of something! she wont let more enemies sneak in :) thats not on you to solve for us!  
TG: ..............1 guess  
GG: iiis that a reluctant "i guess" or a genuine one?  
GG: has this helped with your dilemma at all?  
TG: 1t puts the b1g p1cture 1n perspect1ve  
TG: 1ts n0t the cut and dry 1mage 1 was h0p1ng f0r th0ugh  
TG: s0me t0p class art1sts have m0st 0f the canvas c0vered but theres a b1g bald sp0t 1n the c0rner that theyre just ign0r1ng and 1m n0t c0nv1nced 1 have the r1ght t00ls t0 tackle 1t w1th0ut ru1n1ng the rest 0f the p1cture plus 1 d0nt even l1ke pa1nt1ng but s0me0ne has t0 f1n1sh 1t r1ght??  
GG: umm... thats a neat metaphor, honest!!! :) but im having a little trouble following it :x  
GG: what does the bald spot represent?  
TG: at th1s p01nt pr0bably the state 0f my h0le r1ddled th1nk pan  
TG: fuck 1m the 0ppo0s1te 0f 0bservant r1ght n0w 1 sh0uld have wa1ted l0nger bef0re d1v1ng 1nt0 th1s p1le 0f h00fbeast manure  
TG: s0rry f0r bugg1ng y0u 1ll leave y0u al0ne l1ke 1 sh0uld have t0 beg1n w1th  
GG: no wait!  
TG: ?  
GG: well first of all you are not bugging me!!  
GG: i mean youre my boyfriend, silly! i like hearing from you!  
GG: but before you go, i just thought of something...  
GG: was the doomed daveglitch what your nightmare was about? :( during the movie?  
TG: .........  
TG: 1 dunn0  
TG: but................  
TG: 1 d0nt th1nk s0

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased trolling gardenGnostic [GG] \--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, I mentioned this on my other WIP, but FYI, I haven't gone anywhere near Hiveswap and I don't intend to change that. (I don't wanna play a video game spin-off for a comic that not only couldn't stick the landing but landed so poorly that it retroactively erased its prior feats of acrobatics, ya know? I ain't touching a hot stove twice.) So if there's all this wacky worldbuilding and tidbits about Alternia from the game that I'm not acknowledging, it's because I don't know nor care about it.
> 
> Also noted on my other WIP: I'm super behind on my inbox because I am not a social butterfly and burnt myself out trying to pretend otherwise. I am going to go back and read the comments on previous C&V Act 4 chapters once my social energy levels aren't at rock bottom, which... *gestures at the general state of the world* ...haha, energy... what's that.......
> 
> Anyway, introverted high-fives to everybody! <3


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